Mexico journalists debate cartels, self-censorship

Federal police officers stand guard during the burial of Diario de Juarez newspaper photographer Carlos Santiago in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010. Carlos Santiago, a news photographer with the local Diario de Juarez newspaper, was shot and killed on Sept. 16 while another photographer was seriously injured when gunmen in two cars intercepted them and opened fire. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)
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Federal police officers stand guard during the burial of Diario de Juarez newspaper photographer Carlos Santiago in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010. Carlos Santiago, a news photographer with the local Diario de Juarez newspaper, was shot and killed on Sept. 16 while another photographer was seriously injured when gunmen in two cars intercepted them and opened fire. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)
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Crime scene investigators remove the body of photojournalist Luis Carlos Santiago, who works for Diario de Juarez newspaper, from his car at a shopping mall parking lot in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Thursday Sept. 16, 2010. Santiago, 21, who started working at the newspaper two weeks ago, and fellow photojournalist Carlos Sanchez, an intern, were attacked as they left their offices, according to Diario de Juarez news director Pedro Torres. Sanchez was seriously wounded. (AP Photo/Raymundo Ruiz)— AP

Crime scene investigators remove the body of photojournalist Luis Carlos Santiago, who works for Diario de Juarez newspaper, from his car at a shopping mall parking lot in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Thursday Sept. 16, 2010. Santiago, 21, who started working at the newspaper two weeks ago, and fellow photojournalist Carlos Sanchez, an intern, were attacked as they left their offices, according to Diario de Juarez news director Pedro Torres. Sanchez was seriously wounded. (AP Photo/Raymundo Ruiz)
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El Diario de Juarez photojournalist Christian Torres, colleague of Luis Carlos Santiago who was killed, reacts at the scene of the crime at a shopping mall parking lot in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Thursday Sept. 16, 2010. Santiago, 21, who started working at the newspaper two weeks ago, and fellow photojournalist Carlos Sanchez, an intern, were attacked as they left their offices, according to El Diario de Juarez news director Pedro Torres. Sanchez was seriously wounded. This is the second attack against reporters of El Diario and comes almost a year after the death of reporter Armando Rodriguez who was shot outside his house. (AP Photo/El Diario de Juarez, Ricardo Lopez)— AP

El Diario de Juarez photojournalist Christian Torres, colleague of Luis Carlos Santiago who was killed, reacts at the scene of the crime at a shopping mall parking lot in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Thursday Sept. 16, 2010. Santiago, 21, who started working at the newspaper two weeks ago, and fellow photojournalist Carlos Sanchez, an intern, were attacked as they left their offices, according to El Diario de Juarez news director Pedro Torres. Sanchez was seriously wounded. This is the second attack against reporters of El Diario and comes almost a year after the death of reporter Armando Rodriguez who was shot outside his house. (AP Photo/El Diario de Juarez, Ricardo Lopez)
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A Mexican flag sits on a grave as relatives and friends of Diario de Juarez newspaper photographer Carlos Santiago mourn during his burial in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010. Carlos Santiago, a news photographer with the local Diario de Juarez newspaper, was shot and killed on Sept. 16 while another photographer was seriously injured when gunmen in two cars intercepted them and opened fire. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)— AP

A Mexican flag sits on a grave as relatives and friends of Diario de Juarez newspaper photographer Carlos Santiago mourn during his burial in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010. Carlos Santiago, a news photographer with the local Diario de Juarez newspaper, was shot and killed on Sept. 16 while another photographer was seriously injured when gunmen in two cars intercepted them and opened fire. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)
/ AP

MEXICO CITY 
The threats, four or five of them, came to reporters at Imagen, a daily newspaper in the once-quiet state of Zacatecas where drug cartels have taken over in just the last few years. Then editor Patricia Mercado got a phone call ordering her to print a prepared article or she would be kidnapped.

Mercado ran the story - verbatim - of an innocent young man killed by the army, which was committing human rights abuse.

"If it's a question of life or death, I have no trouble making a decision. The lives of my reporters are most important," she said, after telling a group of Mexican journalists Thursday that traffickers from the Zetas cartel have "almost become the news editors."

Her colleagues from across the country told similar stories of attacks, intimidation and self-censorship in a rare public debate days after El Diario de Juarez wrote a stunning editorial calling drug cartels the de facto authorities in Ciudad Juarez and saying, "Tell us what you want."

President Felipe Calderon said Wednesday he would push legal reforms to protect journalists and create a security plan after he met with the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Inter American Press Association, which sponsored Thursday's conference.

At the same time, the Attorney General's Office announced the first lead in the 2008 killing of El Diario crime reporter Armando Rodriguez, saying soldiers had detained a suspect who described how Rodriguez was killed and said the journalist was targeted because of his work.

El Diario editor Pedro Torres, who ran the provocative editorial after a second of his journalists, 21-year-old photographer Luis Carlos Santiago, was killed last week, said he was skeptical about the arrest, given its timing.

"Every time there is pressure ... they find an escape valve. They present someone, an important arrest," Torres told The Associated Press. In two years, he has yet to be interviewed about Rodriguez's death. "It's very hard to believe in an investigation that is carried out this way," Torres said.

El Diario's editorial dominated the public discourse all week in a country the U.N. called the most dangerous place for journalists in the Americas. Sixty-five news workers have been slain since 2000, Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights has said.

More than 90 percent of the cases have gone unsolved, according to the CPJ.

"For me the most eloquent part of the editorial was the 'de facto authorities,'" said Javier Garza, deputy editorial director of El Siglo de Torreon in the northern state of Coahuila, whose offices were shot up in 2009. "Why would we believe Calderon? ... The legitimate authorities have done nothing."

Investigators believe Rodriguez was killed "for writing a lot of stories against one of the criminal organizations fighting for territorial control" in Ciudad Juarez, the Attorney General's Office said in a statement.

It did not specify the criminal organization. The Juarez and Sinaloa cartels have been battling there since 2008.

The office said it was withholding the suspect's name and when he was arrested because it didn't want to undermine the investigation. It said the suspect has not been charged in Rodriguez's murder but has been charged with other crimes.